"HOW MANY ROADS gives a special view on forty years of contemporary American history through the experiences of various fans of Bob Dylan. Dylan?s lyrics appear to have a sometimes funny, sometitmes dramatic, but always far-reaching impact on people?s lives and convictions.

This documentary is made up of 11 separate portraits of people whose lives, due to the influence of Dylan?s words, took a surprising or decisive turn. They seem to be very ordinary people: a teacher, an accountant, a housewife and a student. They are of various ages, religions and convictions. But they all have one thing in common: without Dylan they would be entirely different from what they now are. Each portrait is connected to a line in one of Dylan?s songs. The documentary is thus compiled like an album consisting of varying songs that nevertheless form a unity.

HOW MANY ROADS is a road movie through both todays? American landscape and the poetic landscape of Dylan?s songs."

Jos de Putter (1959) studied political science and literature, and worked several years as a film critic before he made his first documentary in 1993. IT?S BEEN A LOVELY DAY, about the last year of his parent?s work and life on their traditional farm, was hailed internationally as a film in the purest documentary tradition. One year later, SOLO, THE LAW OF THE FAVELA, focusing on the dreams of teenagers in the slums of Rio de Janeiro to become soccer stars, won the prestigious Joris Ivens Award at the Amsterdam Documentary Filmfestival. Many other awards followed for films as THE MAKING OF A NEW EMPIRE (1999, the Godfather-like story of a Chechen warlord), Dans, Grozny Dans (2002, following a tour of a Chechen children?s dance troupe) Brooklyn Stories and Alias Kurban Sa?d (2004, about five different families who claim to be the heirs of a mysterious writer). In 2005, de Putter was honored with a retrospective of all his films in the National Gallery of Art, Washington, the Pacific Film Archive, Berkeley and the Brooklyn Academy of Music.

"Ever since the earthquake of December 2003, Bam in Southern Iran is nothing but rubble and ruin. Not only have its walls crumbled, exposing kitchens and courtyards, the hearts of its people too, appear to have fallen open. Like a ghost, the camera drifts through the town,

recording the everyday events of Bam?s inhabitants and picking up the intimate, inner conversations they have with their dear departed. In doing so, the film also touches upon the relationship between men and women in Iran and their relationship to God. Above all, ?Voices of Bam? is an ode to the indefatigable life-force embodied by the people of this town. The film is inspired by photographs that were recovered from the town?s debris...the only tangible mementoes left of life before the earthquake."

"Aliona van der Horst (1970) was born in Moscow, Russia, and grew up in the Netherlands. After she graduated Cum Laude at the University of Amsterdam in Russian Language and Literature in 1993, she started studying documentary filmmaking at the Dutch Film and Television Academy. Her graduation film ?The Lady with the White Hat? (1997) was awarded several times, nationally and internationally. Since then Aliona made various documentaries for Dutch public broadcasters: Chained (1997), The Little Red Box (1998), After the Spring of ?68 (2001), winner of a Dutch Academy Award for best documentary, Hermitaz-niks (2003), winner of a Dutch Academy Award for best Cultural Program and Relieved (2004).

Maasja Ooms (1968) studied Photography at the Dutch Academy of Arts and the Dutch Film and Television Academy. Maasja and Aliona have been working together since Aliona?s graduation film The Lady with the White Hat. She was DoP for many documentaries since. In 2003 she also started co-directing documentaries."

"Naples is a city with many crowded pour neighborhoods . Tucked into these areas are ?ricevitorie?, small gambling offices where people go daily to play the lottery.

Visitors do not pick their lotto numbers randomly, instead their numbers have personal associations with happy or tragic events they experienced; for them there is a direct link between the chosen numbers and their attempt to change destiny. All daily events seem to have meaning for the Neapolitans, and are transformed on to the lotto form. In Dreaming By Numbers, some regular visitors to a local gambling office are portrayed and tell their personal stories in wich faith is interwoven into the rest of their lives. The intimate images of the small office run by two sisters, Maria and Angela, is combined with vivid street scenes. The result is a balance between realism and magic.

The people portrayed in this film keep hunting for luck:: some of them play the same numbers during a lifetime, because of the special meaning for them. They all believe in numbers, and in their power to make their life change."

"My starting point is the Neapolitan belief in numbers.

Why do we believe in something? The belief in numbers first came into existence and was handed down in order to control fear. While waiting for some magic to happen the Neapolitans are surrounded by daily reality: life in a chaotic city, unemployment, personal tragedies. So the lotto is not a Fremdk?rper, something separate from everyday reality. On the contrary, it is an expression of the culture and of the spirit of the Neapolitans: the game of chance expresses the need for hope in a town devoid of hope. The numbers are woven with everyday life just like ordinary activities such as sleeping and eating."

"Anna Bucchetti was born in Milan in 1963 where she studied at the Film and Tv Academy (CFP) as lighting cameraman.

In 1992 she moved to Amsterdam where she started working on human interests items

for local ?multicultural?television. Between 1994 and 2003 she wrote and directed

several documentaires (for the youth serial ?YOY?, for VPRO and NPS Broadcast).

In 2004 she was chief editor for Educational television (Etv) in Amsterdam by Frontmedia. "

Ventura, a Cape Verdean laborer living in the outskirts of Lisbon, is suddenly abandoned by his wife Clotilde. Ventura feels lost between the dilapidated old quarter where he spent the last 34 years and his new lodgings in a recently-built lowcost housing complex. All the young poor souls he meets seem to become his own children.

Pedro Costa was born in Lisbon and studied at the Escola Superior de Cinema. He made his feature directorial debut with The Blood, which played at the Festival in 1990. His subsequent features include Casa de Lava (94), Bones (97), In Vanda's Room (00) and O? g?t votre sourire enfoui? (co-director, 01). Colossal Youth (06) is his most recent film.

"1987 Cartas a J?lia (short)

1990 O Sangue

1994 Casa de Lava

1997 Ossos

2000 No Quarto da Vanda

2001 O? g?t votre Sourire enfoui?

2002 6 Bagatelas (short)

2003 The End of a Love Affair (short)

2006 Juventude em Marcha

2006 Ne Change Rien"

Two young mobsters get hold of a case full of heroin belonging to a local well established and respected gangster (Nikita Mikhalkov). The young neophytes try to cheat him not quite understanding how tough a man he really is. A top-flight ensemble of popular Russian actors creates a collective portrait of the Russian Mafia of 1990?s with their macho attitude, raspberry jackets, short haircuts and finger thick golden neck chains and penchant to shoot one another with reckless abandon.

Director, scriptwriter, producer ALEXEY BALABANOV was born in Sverdlovsk in 1959. Graduated from Foreign Languages College in Gorky and Director?s Courses in Moscow. He made two documentaries and moved to St. Petersburg where he directed his first feature film.

"(as director)

1988 The Day of the Angel

1990 The Day of the Spirit

1995 The Time of Sorrow Has Not Come Yet

1995 The Russian Idea"

"In the state of Judea in southern Africa, violence, poverty and sectarianism are endemic. The neighbouring Alliance has invaded to restore ?peace? at gunpoint. Bloody street battles accompany the neighbouring dictatorship?s incursion into its weaker satellite. Promises of a transition to open democratic rule accompany summary executions and brutal massacres.

As the civil war reaches a new level, a divine child is born to a lowly couple. As he grows and witnesses the inhumanity of the world he lives in, his angelic guardians offer him an escape to the heavens. He refuses. This is his world and he must try to save it from the work of evil men and from the darkness working through them.

As an adult, he travels to the capital, gathering followers from the armed factions of rebels that crisscross the land. He demands that his followers give up their guns and confront their corrupt rulers with a vision of non-violent protest and solidarity. Inevitably, he attracts the attention of the Judean tribal leaders who have struck a power-sharing deal with the aloof Governor Pilate. The Son of Man must be brought down and destroyed. It should be another simple ?disappearance? like any other?

Son of Man was filmed in the township of Khayelitsha and on the Eastern Cape of South Africa. This new and adventurous interpretation of the New Testament was filmed by Mark Dornford-May in collaboration with the pioneering Dimpho Di Kopane theatre troupe and choir network. As with his first film, U-Carmen eKhayelitsha? the classic Carmen opera translated into the Xhosa tongue?the original yet traditional dance, songs and rhythms infuse this film with the life and spirit that really cuts its own voice to speak. "

"Mark Dornford-May worked in theater in England for 25 years and founded Broomhill Opera. Mesmerized by the talent he had witnessed in South Africa, he returned in 2000 with Charles Hazlewood to create a new theatre company in Cape Town. That troupe would become Dimpho Di Kompane

U-Carmen eKhayelitsha, Dornford-May?s first film, won the Golden Bear for Best Film at the Berlin International Film Festival 2005.

Son of Man is Dornford-May?s second film"

Kim, a director, receives an unexpected phone call from his cousin, Il-kyu, who tells him his mother will soon meet his father, after having been separated from each other during the Korean War. Kim returns to his birthplace in search of his father. During the trip, he meets a woman he will later see again in his hometown. She is searching for her younger sister, who disappeared years earlier. The film?s rigorous style, slow rhythm, long silences and cold atmosphere work to obtain moments of pure lyricism and offer a reflection on cinema, love, the division of the country, memory and the deepest wounds of each human being.

Jeon Soo-il studied theatre and film at Kyungsung University in Pusan, and film direction at the ESRA film school in Paris. Jeon's d?but feature, Wind Echoing in My Being (1997) screened in Cannes' Un Certain Regard programme in 1997. The Bird Who Stops in the Air (1999) received the Grand Prize at Fribourg and the NETPAC Award at Pusan in 2000.

1961 wurde S?dkoreas Regierung durch einen von General Park Chung Hee gef?hrten Milit?rputsch entmachtet. Danach f?hrte Park das Land 18 Jahre mit eiserner Hand und war wegbereitend f?r Koreas Aufstieg zum modernen Industrieland. Im Oktober 1979 wurde er ermordet. Am fraglichen Tag, machte Park sich einen sch?nen Abend mit Wein, Weib und japanischen Gesang. Mit am Tisch, der Chef des Koreanischen Geheimdienstes Kim, Chefsekret?r Yang und der dicke Bodyguard Cha. Einer davon sollte sich im Verlaufe des Abends dazu entscheiden, den Pr?sidenten zu erschie?en. Sang-Soo Ims Politthriller, hat in S?dkorea heftige Diskussion ausgel?st. Es mussten schlie?lich auf Befehl des Obersten Gerichtshofs insgesamt vier Minuten Archivmaterial am Anfang und Ende des Films entfernt werden. Trotzdem ist der Thriller, teils schwarze Kom?die, ein bis in die Nebenrollen bestens besetztes, hochunterhaltsames St?ck Politfiktion.

Born in 1962 in Seoul, he studied Sociology at Yonsei University. His father was a leading film critic in the 1980s and in 1989 he went on to study film for one year at the Korean film Academy. That same year he worked as assistant director for Park Jongwon's KURO ARIRANG (1989). He then worked as assistant director to the great Korean director Im Kwontaek (Cannes best director CHIHWASEON) for THE GENERAL'S SON I & II.

He made his feature-debut as writer-director in 1998 with GIRLS NIGHT OUT, the story of 3 single women and their active sex lives. His next film, TEARS, which he also wrote, told the hard story of misfit and wayward Korean youth. His third film, A GOOD LAWYER?S WIFE which threw a punch at Korean society with its biting depiction of a disintegrating upper middle class family was not only embraced by the Korean public but also earned the film international acclaim especially through its selection in competition for the Venice Film Festival in 2003.

His forthright critique of Korea?s mainstream society and its rules and values has truly established him as perhaps the most controversial Korean filmmaker who challenges the norm. In his most recent feature project, THE PRESIDENT?S LAST BANG, he succeeds in giving a cinematically outstanding and mature approach to one of the most shocking incidents in modern Korean history.

One hot summer night, Tae-jung receives a call from Seung-young, an old junior high classmate. They were reunited when Seung-young entered the army under him. Though Tae-jung has since been discharged, Seung-young is still serving. Out on leave, Seung-young asks to meet. However, Tae-jung seems uncomfortable around him. Near the end of his army service, Tae-jung, a sergeant, took Seung-young under his wing because he was an old classmate when he entered the army as a private. Seung-young was having a hard time adjusting to army life where it is all about orders and obedience. But even as time passes, Seung-young is unable to adjust to army routine and he becomes more and more isolated from his fellow soldiers. Even Tae-jung is constantly put in an awkward spot because of him. Then Tae-jung is discharged and with it goes his safety net. So Seung-young slowly starts to change?

Mr. Yoon Jong-bin was born in 1979 in Pusan, Korea. He graduated from Film Studies Dept., Chung-Ang University. His short film <Identification of a Man> was awarded Best Comedy Award from The 3rd Mise-en-scene Short Film Festival(2004).

This film ?The Unforgiven? is his debut feature film.

2004 Identification of a Man 16mm/ color/ 32min./ short fiction

The 3rd Mise-en-scene Short Film Festival, Best Comedy Award

The forgotten story of the women who killed their husbands The Angelmakers is an observational portrait of the sleepy village of Nagyrev in rural Hungary. We meet its inhabitants, who share with us their daily life as well as their memories of the village's tainted past. We gradually come to understand the extent of the 'arsenic murders' which took place in 1929, when a large group of women were held responsible for poisoning their husbands with the so-called 'flypaper' method. An intriguing web of stories unfolds through the characters' memories which recapture old but ever-lasting tales of life, death and the struggle between the sexes.

Astrid Bussink (Eibergen, 1975) studied several disciplines at the Academy of fine Arts, AKI in Enschede. She graduated with a project consisting of an art magazine and organisation 'Het Ei'. Besides her studies she was active in several art organisations and the local radio.

After her studies she was involved in the fireworks explosions of Enschede and had to flee her burning house. This experience and the aftermath of the disaster she closely followed and documented, from a personal as well as a creative point of view. This is where her fascination for documentaries developed.She moved to Amsterdam and for several years worked as a picture editor for the glossy business magazine Quote. However, it eventually became clear that her real interest lay in film-making. She studied the technical aspects of filmmaking at Open Studio in Amsterdam. To deepen her knowledge and ideas she consequently did a Masters in Film at the ECA. During this master she stayed in Budapest for four months to work together with the Budapest Filmschool (ZSFE) to shoot her first documentary 'The Angelmakers' that has won several prizes (First Appearance Award IDFA, Amsterdam, Best young author award, Zagreb, Best short Documentary, European Independent Fimlfestival Paris and more) and is still screening on many, many festivals.

Her second short documentary is called R?ckenlage / Upside Down about the mysterious flight of deputy F?hrer Rudolf Hess to Scotland. It will be screening at Edinburgh Filmfestival and New Zealand Documentary Filmfestival, among others.

Astrid Bussink now lives and works in Amsterdam where she just finished another short documentary 'The 9 lives of my car' (premiere Dutch Filmfestival october 2006) and is currently working on a feature length documentary.

In her work as an artist and filmmaker, Astrid is interested in the theme of escape. She is intrigued by how people make certain decisions that appear incomprehensible outside the specific contexts they were taken in, why do people make certain choices, how do they handle limiting and disturbing circumstances and how far will they go to escape, these are reoccurring themes in her work.